Lady Sovereign, Public Warning

In 2004, Lady Sovereign was at the forefront of London's burgeoning grime scene, a self-professed "multi-talented munchkin" with a brilliant line in rude-girl wit. Grime failed to take off commercially, but Sov found an audience of sorts in the US, when Jay-Z signed her to his Def Jam label, where this album was released last year. Sadly, it fails to deliver on her early promise. Three-year-old grime singles (excluding her finest moment, Ch Ching) may not be as fresh in 2007, but they still tower over newer cuts designed to maximise her appeal to a US audience: Love Me Or Hate Me and My England are full of studied cultural references to croquet and Oliver Twist, which ring hollow here. When Sov declares that "we ain't all posh like the Queen", as if she is revealing the dark secrets of her country's underclass, most British listeners will cringe. This is a pity as, at her best, she is far too charismatic and genuinely funny to waste her wit on self-parodic nonsense. She is also too good for the dubious ska-punk direction she has chosen in order to distance herself from grime: her rapid-fire chatter works well when skittering between staccato beats and bleeps, as on A Little Bit of Shhh, but falls flat over the clumsy, sub-Ordinary Boys sound of her more recent material. Public Warning is the sound of a fantastic artist seemingly intent on compromising all her strengths.